They create solar dehydrator to dry fruit and vegetable products and medicinal herbs

18/03/2015

To dehydrate horticultural products and medicinal herbs is the goal of a new solar dryer prototype that will allow agricultural producers to have a tool that helps them diversify their offer and deliver greater added value to their products.

The project - carried out by Florasem Ltda - was presented on a field day at the Santa Cecilia organic farm, in Chillán (Chile), where its benefits and operation were explained, among which a saving of close to 50% compared to a dehydrator stands out. that works with liquefied gas or electricity, informed the Foundation for Agrarian Innovation (FIA), through a statement.

According to the information, the market for dehydrated products would have an important future from the technical-commercial point of view for any agricultural product in Chile, "since it allows it to leave the traditional circuit of commercialization, constituted mainly by the producer and the exporter of fresh perishable products, especially for certain berries such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and others", Said the coordinator of the initiative, Guillermo Riveros.

In this way, the dehydrator is presented as an opportunity to market the products developed in the region under another modality.

In detail, the dryer consists of solar collectors -of German technology- that receive the energy to be used in the dehydrating process, which are then transferred through various engineering mechanisms to the drying chamber, with temperature regulation. The excess hot air that remains is stored in an underground chamber to be used when temperatures are low, being able to obtain a dehydrated material with no more than an 8% humidity, added Riveros.

It should be noted that the work is led by Florasem together with the technological company Veragritec, researchers from the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of the University of Chile, and the agricultural company Ferrada Sotomayor EIRL associated.

First advances

In the statement, FIA informed that during one year a dehydration equipment was designed according to the local reality and the main technical-economic parameters for horticultural and herbal medicine products are being compared with other traditional gas or electric equipment.

The regional representative of FIA in Bio Bio and supervisor of the initiative, Claudia Suazo, said that "in Chile there are very few industries that provide technological solutions in the area of food dehydration, that is why the innovation of this project aims to provide a solution with lower cost, for producers who want to give a greater added value to their production".

For this winter it is expected to evaluate the main chemical properties of the horticultural products and dehydrated medicinal herbs with the new equipment and formulate a 'Dehydration Process Management Protocol' of fruit and vegetable products (raspberries, blackberries and blueberries), as well as medicinal herbs ( chamomile and other herbs).

Source: Fruit Portal